The Build: BYU men’s cross country crescendos to a national title
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- The BYU men’s cross country team celebrates winning the national title in Madison, Wisc., on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024: Creed Thompson (551), Davin Thompson (552), Aidan Troutner (553), Casey Clinger (545), Joey Nokes (548) and Lucas Bons (554).
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- BYU’s Casey Clinger (545) and Creed Thompson (551) compete at the 2024 NCAA men’s cross country national championships in Verona, Wis., on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024.
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- BYU men’s cross country coach Ed Eyestone celebrates winning a national title on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024.
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- The BYU men’s cross country team celebrates winning the NCAA title at Verona, Wis., on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024.
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- Casey Clinger of BYU cross country leads a group of teammates at the Mountain Regional in Reno, Nev., on Friday, Nov. 15, 2024.
The BYU men’s cross country team had a plan.
Heading into the 2024 season, senior Casey Clinger and his fellow team captains held a meeting to discuss their best ideas for success.
“We coined the term ‘The Build,'” Clinger said. “We met with Coach (Ed) Eyestone and talked to him on how we wanted to focus on having a great season but building to the ultimate goal of being national champions. It’s kind of like building a house. We spent the summer laying the foundation, pouring the concrete in the basement and with every workout building a section of the house. You don’t want to be putting on the shingles in August. You want to have a good base and do everything at the right pace for it all to come together for a championship season.”
Building a championship
That process played out pretty much how Clinger and his teammates envisioned. The Cougars won every meet they competed, including the Big 12 Championships, the Mountain Regional and finally the NCAA Championships in Wisconsin on Nov. 23, riding a fantastic start to a national title. BYU held off Big 12 foe Iowa State by 13 points (124 to 137) with Clinger finishing sixth, Creed Thompson 12th, Joey Nokes 31st, Lucas Bonn 39th and Davin Thompson 50th.
“The Build” — the process of peaking at just the right time — worked perfectly.
“Credit goes to Coach Eyestone for being flexible,” said Clinger, who earned his fifth All-American accolade. “He used his training philosophy to support us and he’s such a good coach. He let the team form a vision and he was all on board with it.”
Eyestone has guided BYU to 18 conference titles and two national championships (2019, 2024).
“The guy are certainly a band of brothers,” he said. “They do very hard workouts. That requires a lot of time together with morning and afternoon runs, conditioning, probably three to four hours a day. That process of proximity adds on to that mutual suffering but a lot of pride in being able to run these workouts. You hope at the end of things you’re going to be in a good position. Fortunately you don’t race a lot during cross country season. You just want to save your very best races for last.”
The other race against time
Clinger, who won the 2016 Gatorade Cross Country National Athlete of the Year at American Fork, served a church mission to Japan and has been married to former BYU volleyball player Morgan (Bower) since 2021. The Clingers were expecting their first child the week after the national championships but Morgan’s father called Casey after the race to let him know they were headed to the hospital.
“The nurses were making it seem like she was going to have the baby,” Casey Clinger said. “We ended up rushing me on an earlier fight to get me home. We took pictures after the race and I had to get to the airport. The team said a prayer that I would get back in time.”
Casey Clinger said it turned out to be a false alarm anyway, so he was back in plenty of time to share in the birth a week later of a son, Colton (seven pounds, 12 ounces).
Casey Clinger has a degree in Business Management and is working on his MBA. He is currently doing an internship at a startup in Draper that provides AI software for auditing. He plans on competing in the indoor and outdoor track season for BYU.
Great memories
In a year of highlights, winning the national championship in cross country is still a pretty unforgettable experience for Clinger.
“I love the brotherhood we have,” he said. “In the thick of it, in a cold cross country race, it’s motivating that your brothers are there beside you grinding and suffering just as much as you are. When you come out with a victory, winning the championship makes it that much more fun.
“There’s a picture of us all collapsed on the ground after the race. It’s all about finishing on empty and believing, always going harder than you think you can. When your teammates is beside you doing the same thing, doubt fades. It’s super motivating and rewarding to share that joy with your teammates. It’s pretty incredible.”
BYU is a cross country school
The men and women both won the national titles on that Saturday in November, the first time that had happened in 20 years. While the Cougar football and men’s basketball team get the most headlines, it can be argued that BYU is a cross country school.
“It comes down to having a lot of support,” Eyestone said. “Our coaching staff has been there as athletes and as coaches. You’ve got to have the X’s and the O’s in the right place and you have to have the right talent. When people ask me what it takes to be a world class runner, I tell them to choose their parents very carefully. There’s a huge genetic component and then we try to develop their talents to their upmost ability.
“We’ve done a good job of recruiting good talent. You also have to have a culture of coming together and working hard and supporting one another. Some teams have the talent and the X’s and the O’s but because of culture they never mesh together.”
Clinger said there is another huge factor in BYU’s cross country success.
“It’s because of Ed Eyestone,” he said. “He’s such good coach and a great mentor. He’s built this not only with the right training but the right culture. The guys leave BYU as better people and men because of Coach Eyestone. There is a true brotherhood here. There’s a culture of lifting each other and striving for success. We’ve been on the podium so much the past seven years because of expectations and a lot of love.”
